We can now put knee-high concrete barriers among the list of things ineffective at controlling the oftentimes out-of-control Jakarta motorists.
Recently, Jakarta’s Transportation Agency put up concrete barriers to close the U-turn underneath the Jalan Dr Satrio flyover in Kuningan, South Jakarta. It was part of a trial run of a traffic redirection scheme to alleviate congestion in the intersection. With the U-turn closed, motorists who want to make a U-turn on Jalan Dr Satrio must go up on the flyover and get to the other side of Jalan Sudirman and make the turn in front of Citywalk mall.
Those extra couple hundred of meters were evidently a dealbreaker for many motorcyclists, who yesterday afternoon decided to take matters into their own hands and do this:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B5sTzXMnOY0/
In more recent videos taken at the intersection, more barriers have been set aside allowing cars to make the turn.
Sadly, motorists in Jakarta have shown time and time again that traffic barriers are no, well, barrier to lawbreaking.
That said, the Transportation Agency seems to have conceded that putting up the barriers on the U-turn is a bad idea, acknowledging public complaints that it has made congestion in the area worse.
“We’ll look at [the barrier’s effectiveness] in the next two weeks,” Jakarta Transportation Agency Head Syafrin Liputo told reporters yesterday, as quoted by Kumparan.
